


The Bitter Glass

by Standbackufools



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Brain-breaking Science, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Sci-Fi/Fanstasy fusion, and that Rumpel does not make a good husband, insinuation that Snowing do not make good parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-19
Updated: 2014-09-19
Packaged: 2018-02-17 03:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2295425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Standbackufools/pseuds/Standbackufools
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After returning from the past and the revelation of Marian at the diner, Emma attempts to apologize and forces a confrontation with Regina, which probably isn't the best idea. When she avoids quickly becoming incinerated by throwing ice at the resulting fireball, everyone seems to be surprised. Including Emma herself. But when winter comes early to Storybrooke with no end in sight to the snow, it's Emma who draws the blame. </p><p>Clearly, Regina must have put a curse on her. What other explanation could there be?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. For there a Fatal Image Grows

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Bitter Glass](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2292038) by [mippippippi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mippippippi/pseuds/mippippippi). 



> Many hundreds of thanks to phoenix-91 for her amazing cheer-leading and support throughout writing this fic. Also, a shout-out to Bobbingformangos for some help in the early stages, and immeasurable thanks to my wonderful beta and fiancee, Lilcupcake247, who never minded me bothering her about plot points or phrasing, even in the middle of the night. Thank you, darling. I love you.
> 
> The amazing artwork was all done by Mippippippi, who in addition to creating fantastic works of art for this story, was also a great source of support in the writing process. Thank you!
> 
>  
> 
> This story largely began existing in my brain just after the airing of the season 3 finale, when Elsa's casting had not yet been announced. My brain therefore decided that the only logical candidate for Elsa- a blonde with a penchant for braids- was Jennifer Morrison. And this story was born. Keep that in mind.
> 
> Enjoy!

**The Bitter Glass**

 

  


 

_'I wonder, sometimes, if snowflakes are really as unique as people say._

_If, every so often, there aren't two snowflakes that form, perfectly alike in every way, save for where they land.'_

  


**I.**

  


Determined that her tears would not fall yet again so publicly, Regina sent a last, bitterly heartbroken look at Robin and little Roland, still happily enfolding Marian in a deep and powerful hug. Her newly returned heart felt shattered in her chest, and she closed her eyes and turned away, rushing past the still-feebly apologizing Emma and out the door. The rapidly cooling air of the night did little to calm the suddenly molten heat inside her. She could barely even breathe, the anger threatening to consume her, and she knew she couldn't deal with this- with any of them. Not now.

  


The door creaked open again behind her, and she didn't have to look to see that the insufferable birth mother of her son had followed her outside. As she had done once before, not so long ago. And, again, called for her. “Regina-”

  


“Don't.” The word was difficult to choke out, her entire throat feeling like it was closing in on itself. She glanced up, still facing away from the blonde. She couldn't look at her, but even the sky felt oppressive, ready to crash down on her at any moment. “Just... don't.”

  


Emma felt her heart clench painfully in her chest. The look on Regina's face when she'd left the diner was one she never, ever wanted to see, much less be the cause of. “I never-”

  


“I don't care, Emma! I don't want your platitudes!” Regina hissed, whirling around to glare at the blonde with eyes so filled with fury they were practically burning themselves. She was so angry that she'd gone beyond yelling. “I don't care what you meant or didn't mean, I don't care that … as always, you were trying be so... damned, insufferably Good!” Her anger was building so tightly and rapidly that she barely even realized that some had escaped, a fireball burning in place of her hand as she whipped away again. “I can't even look at you right now.”

  


Emma only continued to give her that same teary, kicked-puppy look. “...I'm sorry,” she murmured, taking a step slowly forwards.

  


The fireball-filled hand leveled itself squarely at the blonde. “Stay away from me, Miss Swan, or so help me, I won't be responsible for what I do to you.” Regina was now only vaguely aware of the fire, staring at it almost as if in confusion of how it had gotten there. Anything to keep her eyes off the pitiable face on the sorry excuse for a savior in front of her. Neither seemed aware at all that they were drawing a crowd at the window, or that they were still in a very public place with half the town gathered to celebrate the marriage of Belle and Rumpelstiltskin and the naming of the Charming's new son.

  


Listening and obeying had never been among any Charming family member's strong suits, particularly when it came to orders given by Regina. So Emma took another slow step towards the former Queen, raising her own hands entreatingly. “Regina-”

  


“I said stay away!” She was full-on screaming now, and the ball of fire hurled itself from her hand before she was even conscious of it, immediately bursting into a plume heading straight for Emma's heart.

  


“Emma!” The door opened frantically, Snow and Belle and Rumpelstiltskin and a number of others piling out in a rush. Rumpel's hand was raised, ready to deflect the oncoming missile.

  


But he never had the chance, a spiral of light blue suddenly spilling from Emma's still-outstretched hands. The entire area between the two witches burst into steam as ice and fire collided.

  


There was a small moment when everyone seemed to take a collective breath of surprise and relief.

  


None more prevalent than Regina's.

  


Swallowing, eyes wide and fearfully staring down at her hands like they'd betrayed her, Regina lifted eyes now swimming with tears, and damned whoever saw them. “I didn't mean to-” She swallowed again, incredibly consciously. “...Please... stay away, Emma,” she nearly whispered, and flung her misbehaving hands at herself, vanishing in a haze of purple.

  


“Emma!” Snow cried again, waddling herself as quickly as she could to where her daughter stood, mouth hanging open. “Are you alright?”

  


She could only nod, her body stilted and frozen not unlike when she'd expelled Cora after she'd tried taking her heart.

  


“Impressive catch, Ms. Swan,” offered Rumpel, only mildly annoyed that his help hadn't been needed after all. “You've been learning.”

  


“Yeah,” Emma gasped, still staring at her own still-steaming hands. She swallowed thickly, then glanced back to the wisps of purple still in the air. “She's been teaching me.” Slowly, her hands lowered to her sides. “...I should go after her.”

  


A cane clicked ominously on the cement beneath them. “I don't think that's a good idea, dearie.”

  


Snow had begun lightly running her hands up and down Emma's arms. Her daughter felt as chilled as the ice she'd just conjured. “Rumpel's right, honey. I think that whole display should tell you that Regina really doesn't want to see you right now.”

  


“But I-”

  


Rumpel clacked his cane again, gathering her attention as her head finally turned towards him. “Tell me, Ms. Swan: what made you pick ice?”

  


She shrugged, the shock of what she'd done finally beginning to wear off as she faced the Dark One. The Dark One who she was still a bit peeved at, for trying to trap her back in the past. “I dunno. I just kinda reacted.”

  


“...Interesting. Well, should you wish to take up your lessons again, I might be persuaded-”

  


Emma's reply was out of her throat before he could even finish with a high-pitched giggle. “Save it, Gold. I'm not all that thrilled with you, either,” she sneered in an expression far more common on Regina's face than her own, and turned on her heel to stalk away. “Congratulations on the wedding,” she muttered over her shoulder, more out of a fondness for Belle than any other reason.

  


“Rumpel?” Belle's voice was quiet and concerned and a little shaky, her hand raising to zip up her jacket a little further. The air felt chilly of a sudden, as Emma thudded in the direction of Mifflin Street. “What did you do to upset her so?”

  


“...I haven't the foggiest idea.” As he reflected on that very question, the Dark One found himself baffled. He couldn't remember anything specific he'd done recently to incur the savior's ire. He continued to stand there, pondering in the now brisk cold, until the first slow snowflakes began to fall on his furrowed brow and his new wife tugged him back into the warmth of the diner.

  


* * *

 

 

The noise from the diner made it hard for Henry to hear when his phone rang, but he still managed to catch the call before it went over to voice mail. “Mom? Where'd you go?”

  


“Hey, kid.” Emma's voice was wavering, the reception a bit shoddy, due no doubt to the rapidly cooling weather outside. “Stay with your grandparents tonight, okay?”

  


“Sure, okay. But where're you? What's wrong?” He stepped away from the table where his grandparents and everyone else was still cooing over his new uncle, heading towards the windows where reception was hopefully better.

  


“...I messed things up for your mom, kid. Big time.” Even through the phone, Emma sounded pitiful.

  


“You didn't know it was Marian! You were just trying to save a life, 'cause that's what you do! You're-”

  


“The Savior. Yeah, I know, Henry,” Emma sighed raggedly in his ear. He wondered if maybe his mom thought the title was really more of a burden than anything else.

  


“And you did!” He pressed, eager for his mother to realize just how good a thing she'd done. He glanced over to the now-empty table where Robin and Marian and Roland had sat, looking so happy, before they'd decided to return to the Merry Men's camp and share their celebration with their entire 'family.' “You saved her! You reunited a family. You should have seen them when they left. They were so happy!”

  


“I know. But your Mom's happiness matters too, kid.”

  


“Well, duh.” He rolled his eyes, knowing full well his mom couldn't see it, but it needed to be done anyway. “But she was happy before without Robin. She can be happy again.” Besides, he was back in her life, and he remembered her now. And his mom's love for him had been True and strong enough that she was able to break a curse even without her heart in her chest. That had to count way more than some guy she'd been dating for like a week. “...Maybe I should come with you to see her.”

  


The cell reception was really getting bad, now. He could only make out every other word or so. “Kid, -- freezing out --. I -- you being back -- her life is going to help --, but first I -- have to apologize – try to fix this -- myself. Maybe you -- come over tomorrow, -- she's had a chance to – down for a while. ...Honestly, I don't even -- that she's -- answer -- door. I've -- knocking -- a while now.”

  


“Mom? I can barely hear you.”

  


“...I -- to fix this, Henry.”

  


The call dropped, and Henry peered out the window at the falling snow, hoping that his mother knew what she was doing.

  


 

* * *

 

  


“Regina?” Emma's fingers had long since gone numb, her hand red and stinging from her ceaseless knocking on the door. It remained stubbornly closed, still, the chilled brass of the 108 practically mocking her by now. “Regina, please. I know you're in there. ...I just want to talk. Please.”

  


Her knocking had become less frequent than it had been when it started, but she still persisted, not caring when her breath no longer gave as much fog in the cooling temperatures. Or when her skin began to show signs of chafing at the cold. “Regina....”

  


Eventually, when the snow was taking longer and longer to melt from off her hair and face and chilled fingers, her knocks grew less and less frequent. And finally stopped altogether.

  


* * *

 

  


  


It was the next morning when David received the call. Late enough that the sun still had a tiny chance at possibly melting the still-lightly falling snow. Though it still fell in almost lazy spurts, as it had all evening, the accumulation was only a few inches, not nearly enough to cripple the Maine town, but odd enough so early in the season.

  


The call was brief, just Ruby reporting an uneasy sort of feeling over at Gold's shop. And a scent of something... off. She'd called there first, of course, and gotten no response. Subsequent calls to Belle's cell phone had yielded the same result. Nothing terribly worrisome, David had argued. They were still in their honeymoon phase, after all. Still, Ruby had pressed, she had a very bad feeling about it. Belle had promised to drop by early in the day, to thank her and Granny for their help in their post-wedding party, but had never showed. And in further asking around the patrons at the diner, no one had seen her or Rumpelstiltskin at all since the night before. Anyway, Ruby was going to head over to Gold's, and would David mind tagging along just in case something was wrong.

  


“I'll come with you,” Snow declared after he'd told her.

  


“Are you sure that's wise? You should stay with Neal.”

  


“Henry can watch Neal,” she flashed a smile at their grandson, playing on his GameBoy and nodding when he heard his name. “Charming, I feel like I've done nothing but sit around and be guarded ever since we learned about Zelena. And now she's gone, and the baby's safe and everything's fine. I want to do something.”

  


“But it's probably nothing.”

  


Snow smiled as if she'd already won. “Then there's no reason I can't come.”

  


With a small sigh of defeat, David ceded the point. He glanced a little warily at the thirteen-year-old on the couch. “...Maybe we should call Emma.”

  


“I'll be fine, Gramps,” Henry rolled his eyes. “You won't be gone long, and he's sleeping.” He glanced over at the sleeping baby in the bassinet to prove his point.

  


“See?” Snow pressed. “They're fine. We'll be back before he even wakes up.”

  


David gave a resigned nod. “Okay, kid. Give us a call if you need anything, though, right?”

  


“Sure,” Henry shrugged, then turned back to his game.

  


They met Ruby outside Gold's pawnshop, the inside appearing quite dark despite the 'open' sign still on the door. A little strange, sure, but nothing to worry about yet, David told himself. The door opened with its usual ringing of the little bell.

  


“It's so cold...” Snow whispered, her breath fogging as it passed her lips. Not that they could see much beyond. She grasped for the light switch against the wall, finding it and grunting as repeated flicks did nothing to ease the darkness. The power wasn't working.

  


David fumbled for the flashlight at his police-issue belt, grateful that he'd remembered to put it on before leaving the house. A brief pause as he remembered how to switch the damn thing on, and then there was a collective gasp as the beam of light finally illuminated the dark space.

  


“What the...”

  


The entirety of the pawnshop had been turned into some demented winter wonderland. Ice was everywhere, creeping up the the walls and ceilings, in giant columns reaching up from the floor and jutting out at unnatural angles- a maze of frozen thorns. Massive stalactites of cold even hung suspended from the ceiling in some bizarre parody of the unicorn mobile that had once hung there. Every glass display cabinet had been shattered, and it was impossible to tell on the floor what was bits of broken glass and what was ice. A quick look above revealed the cause of the darkness: the overhead lights and every lamp appeared to have suffered the same fate. Every piece of glass in the room had burst from the cold.

  


And there, sobbing, spires of ice trapping each limb, was...

  


“Belle!”

  


Ruby rushed forwards, shoving herself bodily between columns of ice, barreling into those in her way with enough wolf-strength to make them shatter in sprays of snow. When she reached her friend, she grasped the first spear of ice holding Belle captive with both hands, and pulled. The ice broke apart, falling into fine powder. “Are you okay?”

  


“She froze him.” Lips turned nearly blue gasped out in great, heaving breaths, punctuated by heavy, gut wrenching tears. She barely even seemed to notice that fine shards of ice were flying through the air as Ruby ripped the first of her hands free. “She froze him...”

  


“Find some blankets or something!” Ruby tossed over her shoulder to Snow, moving to the next shackle of ice and bursting it apart. “She's in shock!”

  


Shuffling, still rather bulky considering she'd only given birth a few days ago, Snow moved to comply, heading towards the other room to a cabinet she remembered that Gold stored blankets in. The path to it was relatively clear. Obviously whatever action had happened to cause so much ice, had taken place in the main shop. She reached for the light switch in the back room, and light spilled in through the doorway into the frozen shop.

  


Belle was thrashing, her voice raising in volume and beginning to sob, her freed limbs straining forward while those still bound held her fast in place. Whatever had done this to her certainly didn't want her leaving in a hurry. Her breath was barely making any fog at all, so long had she been held in ice. “She froze him!” As soon as all four limbs were free, Belle lurched away from the wall.

  


Ruby was thrown back by the sudden movement, her friend colliding into her and rushing past without care before surging into the maze of frozen thorns. “Belle!”

  


But the woman had not run far, falling at the feet of a very realistic-looking ice statue of Rumpelstiltskin. Even with the light from the other room, it was hard to make out, so David aimed his flashlight. Belle wailed at the sight of it, flinging her arms around a torso of ice as hard as stone.

  


It wasn't a statue.

  


The flashlight illuminated frozen features contorted in pain, a hand poised over his heart. “Oh my god.” Even the bravest of princes had to repress a shiver at the sheer pain chiseled onto the face of the Dark One.

  


“...What could do this?” Snow managed to whisper, finally returning into the main room with blankets in hand, stopping to stare at the scene before her.

  


David was shaking his head, unable to do little but stare, like his wife, at the frozen figure of Rumpelstiltskin. “I don't know.”

  


With a growl under her breath, Ruby snatched the blankets out of Snow's hands, rushing forward to wrap a few of them around the trembling form of Belle, still clinging desperately to the frozen man.

  


Prolonged exposure to him would only spell bad things for both of them, Ruby guessed. At best, it would only make Belle colder and at worst, cause Rumpel to... well, melt. “Belle?” she asked as gently as she could, rubbing cold shoulders through the blankets and trying to slowly pull the woman away from her frozen husband. “What happened?”

  


At first she seemed to go along with Ruby, rising to her feet. But then she straightened, swallowed, and curled her arms around the man's shoulders, pressing a desperate kiss to his frozen lips.

  


“A curse.” Snow said aloud what they all thought, and everyone seemed to draw in a breath at the same time, waiting.

  


Nothing happened.

  


“Rumpel... oh, Rumpel, no!” Belle wailed out his name, hot tears pouring down her cheeks to splash on the frozen man, and she only kept crying, leaning up every so often to press yet another kiss to unresponsive lips.

  


Ruby was still trying to pull the girl away, each hot drop of Belle's tears beginning to slowly eat away at the frozen jacket on Rumpelstiltskin. “Belle?” she tried again, attempting to force her friend to look at her. “...Who did this?”

  


Tear-stained eyes finally broke away from her husband, and the woman turned around to wrap her arms around Ruby, needing the comfort. She buried her head in Ruby's shoulder, muffling out her first words.

  


Snow finally compelled herself into action, rushing forward to sling yet another blanket around the trembling woman. “What was that?” she pressed gently.

  


Belle turned her eyes on Snow, her tear-stained glare just as chilled as the room. Just as chilled as her words, her voice slipping away from sorrow and into rage. “ _Emma_ ,” she spat. “It was Emma.”

 


	2. That the Stormy Night Receives

**II.** ****

  


“ _Rumpel? Why on earth do you need so many wands, anyway?”_

  


_Belle heard her husband chuckle from the doorway. She was in the back room, looking over the items there while he worked in the main shop._

  


_It was inventory day. Not the honeymoon she'd been expecting, to be sure, but she didn't really mind. After everything that had happened with Zelena and being forced to be away from the shop so long, she could understand her husband's desire to be surrounded by the familiar. To make very sure that everything was as he had left it. Not that she'd done a bad job in looking after it, of course._

  


“ _Each one does a different task, dearest. You never know when I might need them.”_

  


_She had to smile at the pet name, unique only to her, and popped her head around the corner as she playfully scolded, “You really need to have some sort of labeling system, you know. I don't know how you expect to remember what everything does.”_

  


“ _We've been married for one day,” he smiled to himself, shaking his head, “and already she's trying to reorganize everything.”_

  


“ _To help you!” She called at him playfully as she once again went back to her task in the other room. “After all, the less time you have to spend here in the shop, the more time-”_

  


_The bell above the door rang, and Belle went quiet. Just in case._

  


“ _Sheriff Swan,” she heard him greet. “Trying out a new look? I'm not sure it suits you.”_

  


_Just Emma, then. Belle smiled to herself, turning to engross herself once again in cataloging the wands, and let the conversation going on in the next room fade into background noise for several long minutes._

  


_Until the shouting began._

  


“ _You destroyed my life! Now fix what you have done or so help me-!”_

  


“ _Getting angry, dearie? Now, now, you know what happens when you lose control...”_

  


“ _Enough!” There was a low rumbling beneath the ground, followed by a very sudden, loud crash. Like glass shattering. A lot of glass. “Fix this! Fix it now!”_

  


_Panicking, Belle grabbed the first wand that came to hand and rushed into the next room. “Rumpel?” She stopped dead in her tracks, staring in frightened awe as her new husband stared down Emma Swan, the sheriff's hands raised as spears of ice began to grow like vines all around the room._

  


“ _Emma! What are you doing?”_

  


_It was enough of a distraction to pull Rumpel's attention away for half a second. “Belle?! Get back! She's dangerous!”_

  


“ _I warned you!” Emma screamed, a blast of power shooting from her hands and aimed straight at Rumpelstiltskin._

  


_He was still focused on Belle, and the half-second was long enough to be too late to escape. A spiral of ice-blue magic struck him in the chest, sending him hurtling back towards the doorway._

  


“ _Rumpel! Oh, god, Rumpel!” Belle could only keen and sob and stare unbelieving eyes up at the blonde before her. “What have you done?!”_

  


_But Emma was too busy staring at her hands as if they'd betrayed her. “I-”_

  


_Belle advanced on her, wand poised in her hand, not even knowing what it would do when she raised it. And not taking her eyes off the woman in front of her to glance down at the tag she'd already affixed to this particular wand. 'Unveiling spells.'_

 

* * *

  
  


“I only hit her once with it before she froze me to the wall. Then she looked around at the whole room and ran out the door.” Belle paused, taking another sip from the mug of hot cocoa that Granny had forced into her hands the second that Ruby had brought her in through the door.

  


They'd all quickly agreed that remaining in the shop would not be the most conducive place for Belle's story. But the Sheriff station wouldn't do, as the sheriff herself was the accused, for all that no one could get in touch with her despite several frantic calls to any phone that Snow thought could even possibly reach Emma. And Belle outright refused to be taken to the hospital. So, while Snow had furiously phoned Emma yet again and gotten no response from any of her numbers, and David had quickly taped off the crime scene and gotten in touch with the Blue Fairy to come check everything out, Ruby had once again taken charge of the actual victim and brought the still-shivering Belle to Granny's.

  


Granny herself had taken one look at the grim look on everyone's face and cleared out the diner. Grumpy, of course, refused to budge, not once Snow had come in looking like someone had shot her puppy, and was only barely convinced that the rest of the dwarfs did not need to be called.

  


David had come in after his call to inform them that the Blue Fairy would be on her way straight to Gold's shop to investigate the scene, and that he would wait for her there. The two of them had entered the diner towards the end of Belle's story, a grim look on Blue's face and disbelief on David's as they had patiently waited to hear the end.

  


By now, much of Belle's color had returned, but she had drifted off in her story every so often to let her gaze linger back in the direction of the shop, where her new husband was still frozen. She swallowed the chocolate thickly, and turned her attention back to the group, where Snow looked like she'd been itching to interrupt ever since the story had begun.

  


“But how do you _know_ it was Emma?” The savior's mother pressed, nonplussed by a warning growl from Ruby at interrupting. Snow shot a look at the wolf.

  


Belle focused on her, shaking her head, still a little fogged and shocked by everything herself.

  


But it was Blue who answered, clearing her throat. “It _was_ Emma.” She held up a wand in a plastic evidence bag. “Is this the wand you struck her with?”

  


A quick nod from Belle and the fairy leader sighed softly. “I feared as much.” She handed the bag back to David, who brought it over to Snow with one pointed look from his wife. “It's a wand of Unveiling. Any spells meant to deceive or transform appearances are undone with the use of this wand.”

  


David swallowed uncomfortably, casting his mind back to when they'd all been so sure that Regina had killed Archie. “So ...if anyone was just pretending to be Emma-”

  


“The wand would have revealed their true identities.”

  


Snow was still shaking her head in denial. “But this doesn't make any sense! Why would Emma attack Rumpel? It must have been someone else!”

  


Blue stepped forward to stand face to face with Snow. If she had to be the bearer of such news, the very least she could do was give it to Snow's face. “I ran every magical check I could think of on that crime scene. Everyone's magic has a different sort of signature. No one else in Storybrooke has one quite like Emma's. It's very distinct- full of light magic and True Love. And everything in the pawn shop- and in the snow outside, for that matter- it's all Emma's magic.”

  


There was an audible pause as everyone seemed to take in this information. Snow was still shaking her head, refusing to believe that any of this could be true.

  


From her place beside Belle, Ruby quietly cleared her throat. “We all saw Emma create ice last night, Snow.”

  


“And she was very upset with Rumpel,” Belle added, her face falling as his name left her lips.

  


Snow's eyes were darting all around the room, still in disbelief. David curled his arms around her, in stunned shock himself. Until a look of confusion fell over his face. He turned to Belle. “How did she look?”

  


Belle blinked at him. “What?”

  


“You said Rumpelstiltskin commented on her having a new look.”

  


Brow furrowed in thought, Belle tried to cast her memory back onto Emma's appearance. She'd been so focused on Rumpel that she'd barely even noticed anything beyond the fact that it was Emma. “I didn't really notice. She was wearing blue. Her hair was up, I think. Maybe braided?”

  


“That don't sound like Emma,” Grumpy commented from the bar.

  


“It _was_ Emma,” Belle insisted, turning a glare on the dwarf just as icy as the inside of the pawnshop.

  


Still holding his wife, David turned back to the Blue Fairy. “Is there anything that could have forced Emma to do this? A coercion spell or a curse? Maybe someone even took her heart?”

  


“There are any number of possibilities, I suppose.”

  


Popping her head in from the kitchen, still wiping a pan with a towel, Granny piped up. “Before last night, has anyone ever seen Emma use ice before? Maybe the ice has something to do with it.”

  


Belle blinked up from staring in her hot chocolate. “...I think I remember a story about a woman turned to ice.” She looked hesitantly at Ruby. “There's a book at the shop. Would you...?”

  


The wolf was nodding at her friend before she could even get the words out. “Of course I'll come with you.”

  


“We'll all come with you,” Snow announced, trying to look regal without looking ill at the very idea of her daughter doing something so evil.

  


“Shouldn't you be with your baby?” Granny offered in as much of a 'I'm not telling you what to do, but here's what you should do' kind of way as possible.

  


Snow offered a tight-lipped smile. “Henry's with him. I'm sure he'd call if there was anything wrong.”

  


Granny raised an eyebrow at Snow, but said no more. She decided to stay behind and re-open the diner for lunch.

  


As the rest of them headed into the roped off pawn shop, Blue was careful to decree: “No one touch Rumpelstiltskin. We don't know exactly what sort of magic is keeping him suspended. Too much contact could cause the suspension to thaw.”

  


Like an ax to a tree, the fairy's words seemed to shake Belle to her very core, and she visibly shuddered. Ruby was instantly at her side, shooting a glare at the fairy that well could have melted the entire room. Showing more strength and courage than many people thought her capable of at first, Belle rallied herself, taking a shuddering breath, and headed into the back room. “The book was in here.”

  


The rest of the group shuffled uneasily around the room, still filled with ice. The Blue Fairy was moving intently towards one of the many broken display cabinets, reaching inside of one and grasping a small stick with two prongs. Her hands instantly began to glow, a faint teal light emanating as she wandered slowly around the room.

  


“What are you doing?” asked Snow.

  


“Divining. If Emma's magic was forced out of her, sometimes such things can be seen through the trails that remain.” As she spoke, faint lines began to appear around the room, ghostly trails of light that traced their way through the spires of ice.

  


“Oh!” Snow exclaimed, the bulk of her body moving forward as if to help. “Do you see anything?”

  


Much of the room was now lit by trails of pale blue, focusing brightly around the largest formations of ice. But as Blue began to turn the small rod in her hand back towards the counters, faint outlines of many other colors began to glow around the items inside the shelves. “Fascinating,” she murmured, but bent low to examine one of the blue trails around a particularly large stalagmite of ice. With her free hand, she reached out a single finger, the barest tip moving through the trail. It instantly fell away into nothingness. “No coercion. This magic was not cast through the will of anyone but its maker.”

  


“And you're absolutely certain that it was-”

  


The fairy sighed, turning to face the former princess. “I'm sorry, but yes, this is Emma's magic. I know it is hard to hear, but her magic is very distinct.”

  


“I just-”

  


“Snow,” David curled his arms around his wife, giving a thankful nod to the fairy.

  


“...It just doesn't make sense.” Snow whispered. “We have to find Emma.”

  


“It's not here,” came Belle's voice from the other room. “I must have left it at the library.”

  


David glanced down at his cell phone, still silent with no voice mails. He bit at his lower lip, looking over at the worry-stricken lines on Snow's face and the pain forever frozen on Rumpel's icy features. “You and Ruby go and find the book. We'll look for Emma.”

  


Nodding, Ruby guided Belle out the back door of the shop, so that she wouldn't have to pass by the statue of Rumpel again. Belle was holding up rather well, after all, but there was no sense in giving her that many more reminders if they could help it. And giving her something to do- this book to find- was as good a way to take her mind off the fact that her husband was a giant fancy party decoration.

  


Snow, David, and Grumpy headed to the front door. Blue seemed to hesitate before placing the divining rod back in its display case. The faint lines of magic dissipated as soon as her hand had left it, and then she, too, headed for the door. “I should get back to the convent. Please let me know when you find this book?”

  


“Of course,” said Snow with a respectful nod. “Thank you again for your help.”

  


“I'll drive you back,” offered David, thoughtfully holding the door open for her.

  


With a nod of her own, Blue stepped out. And promptly froze in her tracks.

  


“What the hell-?” Grumpy uttered, his eyes gone wide as they took in the world of white that greeted them.

  


The whole of the town had been blanketed in a thick layer of cold. Snow was falling rapidly from the skies, now, the light trickle of earlier now completely gone by the wayside. Already the snow was piled high up to the windows of David's truck. There was no way they'd be driving anywhere.

  


Through the snow, they could just make out the figures of Ruby and Belle, the former trudging diligently through the snowfall and carving a clear path for the librarian.

  


Grumpy stood staring up at the sky, before glancing over at David and Snow with an obvious 'What do we do?' look on his face.

  


The two former monarchs looked stumped. David turned to the Blue Fairy, who was holding out her hand, inspecting some of the fine falling powder in her fingers.

  


Snow had a hand over her eyes, shielding them from the glare of the still-shining sun as she peered at a figure in the distance.

  


David followed her gaze, eyes narrowing. “Is that-?”

  


“Emma!” Snow exclaimed, her body shuffling its way through the white powder after which she was named, struggling to force her way to her daughter, standing alone at the opposite end of the street.

  


The blonde seemed to halt as her name was called, turning to face them. She was hard to miss, not in the red jacket that had become ubiquitous with her, but in a blue dress that rippled around her. The wind whipped up, sending the long braid of her hair floating in its sudden ferocity. “Stay away from me!” she called, raising her hands as Snow and now David and Grumpy had begun shuffling as fast as they could towards her.

  


Even in the snow, it obviously _was_ her daughter, and Snow felt her heart drop at the pain in Emma's voice. Snow's breath was puffing around her face, her body still recovering from giving birth not all that long ago and hardly prepared for all this exertion. “Emma, sweetie, we just want to talk to you! We just want to help you!”

  


The shaking of her head was hard to see from so far away, but the trembling of her hands was far more obvious, even as slow spirals of blue magic began to swirl around her clenched palms. “The last man who offered me help attacked me! I do not want your help! Leave me alone!”

  


“Emma, please! We can figure out who did this to you!”

  


The blonde's face curled in what could have been a grimace, or else a desperate attempt to keep herself at bay. From the way her magic was now swirling vividly around her hands, she was failing, much as Regina had done the night before. “Stay back!” she called again, her hands still outstretched.

  


“Emma!” David's voice joined Snow's as he endeavored to catch up to his wife. “Just come with us! We'll figure everything out! Just stop the snow and we can help you!”

  


“I can't!” With a final shout, blue magic burst from clenched fists, shooting in tight spirals directly at the pair of them.

  


“Snow!”

  


“David!”

  


They both turned to rush towards the other, desperate to save the other from the blast of ice magic. Inevitable, really, that they both got caught up in the snow and landed face-first in fine powder, arms outstretched. The magic flew safely over their heads. By the time they both righted themselves (a process which took considerably longer for Snow, to the point that David got to her long before she had finished spitting snow out of her mouth) Emma was gone.

  


Frantic, as if he had misplaced his wallet instead of his daughter, David looked all around them, finally turning to where Grumpy and the Blue Fairy were still standing on the sidewalk. “Where did she go?”

  


“She vanished. Went all up in smoke like the Queen.”

  


Snow looked frantically up at the Blue Fairy, a desperate hope in her eyes. “Blue, please tell me that there was some evidence she's been cursed.”

  


“I can't tell you anything at all for certain now. I'm sorry.”

  


David's phone beeped with a received text. Tears in his eyes and still cradling his wife, he slowly pulled out his phone. “...It's Ruby. She wants to meet us at the library. Belle found the book.”

  


With slow, careful footsteps, they made their way to the path that Ruby had previously cleared to the library.

  


Once there, they tried their best to shake off the snow and their encounter with Emma, pulling off scarves and coats alike. If only memories could be forgotten as quickly.

  


From the circulation desk, Ruby called out, “We found it! We know what's wrong with Emma.”

  


The group moved into the main room of the library. Snow was still visibly shaken, just blindly following David in halting, shuffling footsteps.

  


On the desk was a dusty-looking book that looked to be nearly as heavy as Belle was. Clearly one of Rumpelstiltskin's texts. The Blue Fairy's eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets at the sight of it, and she hurried over to the table and the enormous book. The librarian was bent over it, peering down into scrawling, nearly incomprehensible writing, and did not even look up to see them enter.

  


“It's actually in two books,” she said quietly as Blue came up beside her. “This one's an old legend- a Hans Christian Andersen story, actually,” she gestured to the other side of the massive book, where a much smaller, more modern one was also open, at a page near the very beginning. “It mentions a mirror,” she pointed first to the old book, and then to a corresponding drawing in the new one.

  


“...According to Andersen, it was crafted by hateful sprites or goblins who lived only to cause pain and misery. It took the images of everything good and beautiful and reflected horrible things on them. It made anyone who looked in it only see evil instead of the good inside people.”

  


Snow glanced down at the two books, but her attention fell almost immediately to the smaller, looking curiously at the book of Andersen's fairytales. More specifically, at the title topping the page that spoke of the mirror. She gasped, reading it aloud, “'The Snow Queen?'”

  


Belle nodded.

  


Blue, too, stepped up to the table, ignoring the modern book and staring intently at the image in the old one. “I know this mirror. It's the Bitter Glass.” Her fingers brushed lightly across the old page. “If someone was cursed with it....” she drifted off, frowning even at the thought.

  


“Do you know where we can find it?” David asked hopefully.

  


Blue shook her head, turning the next page of the ancient tome, and the mirror was shown again, smashed. “As I thought. According to fairylore, it was broken by the goblin's ravens of unresting thought. They smashed it into tens of thousands of shards, which embedded themselves into people's eyes so that any beauty that they see turns ugly and evil, and their eyes themselves become hard and unkind- reflecting the mirror.”

  


Belle nodded with a heavy lump in her throat. “That's in the book, too. Or...” her voice began to choke, remembering the still form of her husband. “...The shards can fall into people's hearts and freeze them into lumps of ice.”

  


No one spoke for a moment, and Belle leaned into Ruby as the wolf rubbed gentle circles onto her back. After a while, she cleared her throat. “...So someone ...what? Cursed Emma using a shard of this... ice mirror? Who would do that?”

  


Grumpy harrumphed from the corner, arms crossed over his chest. “Gee, I wonder. Who do we know who has a thing for mirrors and last time we saw her was really, really pissed off at Emma?”

  


Another pause split the air.

  


“Oh god...” Snow finally whispered, swallowing thickly. “No. No, she wouldn't. She couldn't. …She was being so Good. She'd changed.”

  


Grumpy scoffed, finally moved to speak now that it was on a subject he felt himself an expert on. “People don't change, sister. Just look at the Dark One. If he'd changed, one little kiss should have thawed him right up, right?”

  


Ruby slammed her fist on the table. “Grumpy!” she nearly growled, tilting her head at Belle, who once again looked like she was near tears.

  


The surly dwarf had the decency, at least, to look slightly apologetic. “...Sorry, sister,” he told Belle. “I'm just saying... Regina doesn't change. We've given her tons of chances. And we _know_ she's mad at Emma.”

  


“No,” Snow shook her head. “No, I refuse to believe she did this.”

  


It was Belle who spoke then, slamming the ancient book shut. “That's what you said about Emma, too.”

  


Snow was still shaking her head, turning in David's arms to look at him. “...We have to figure out where Emma went.”

  


 

 


	3. Roots Half Hidden Under Snows

**III.**

  
  


There were days when Regina truly wished that it had not been long-since engrained in her to rise with the sun. She had no will to get up. Perhaps ever again. So for once in her life, she ignored the inner voice of her mother, and rolled over to sleep in.

  
  


She awoke hours later, much more rested, but feeling no better.

  
  


Really, she supposed she shouldn't have been surprised. A heart as dark as hers was clearly incapable of ever being happy. Even if she had been trying, so, so hard, to be worthy of it. For once in her life. Surely she deserved some tiny piece of happiness by now.

  
  


Evidently not.

  
  


Hers was the most resilient heart for a reason. It had been broken so many times, taken away by those who'd convinced her to trust them and then shattered and forged anew, but never in a path she'd chosen. Even now, it thumped beneath her breast like a ticking bomb of pain, and she felt herself tempted, so very tempted, to rip the cursed thing from her chest once more.

  
  


But then that was what had gotten her in this mess in the first place.

  
  


She had fallen for Robin without her heart in her chest, compelled into him by that damn tattoo and a prophecy written in pixie dust. And when her stolen organ had finally been replaced, she'd expected the prophecy to fulfill itself instantly, to feel so much more when she'd looked at him, perhaps to feel  _whole_ for the first time in her life. But she hadn't. She looked at Robin and she still felt the same as she had when she'd encountered him in the Enchanted Forest. Empty.

  
  


Even before last night, she'd known that she hadn't been in love with Robin. Not yet, anyway.

  
  


Still, according to the pixie dust, he was her predestined soul mate. And he was obviously interested in her, in her being his second chance. She'd had to tell herself that that didn't mean she was his second choice. Though, clearly, as Marian had been returned and Robin hadn't spared her even a second  _look_ , all she was to him was a placeholder. A substitute for the real thing and a nursemaid for his child. Again.

  
  


She wanted to scream and burn this entire town to the ground. She wanted to spend an eternity cursing and killing and maiming. But she had done all that before, and it had gotten her only more pain. An empty, black heart, that only came truly alive in the presence of her son.

  
  


And, sometimes, in Emma Swan's.

  
  


It had been odd, when she'd first noticed how at ease she was beginning to feel in Emma's company. How much she actually enjoyed teaching her magic, even if she still considered the blonde a fabulous waste of potential. She had thought they'd even begun to trust one another. And Regina did not trust easily.

  
  


That was what hurt the most about having Robin ripped away from her. Not so much the loss of Robin himself, but that the precious, precious trust that had grown bit by bit between herself and the Savior had utterly shattered the moment Emma had altered the time-line and brought a woman back from the dead without even considering the consequences.

  
  


She'd thought Emma had known better.

  
  


And of course the blonde had simpered and apologized like her imbecile mother, and kept her up half the night with her incessant knocking. But all the apologies in the world would not rebuild that trust.

  
  


No one should begrudge Regina her tears or her anger. But she knew that this town full of people she'd wronged would show her no courtesy.

  
  


And she was tired of crying and raging.

  
  


She had hidden and cried and fumed with anger enough to last a lifetime. It was time to get up. At least Henry would have a smile for her.

  
  


A while later, dressed in one of the many pantsuits that had so quickly become her armor in this land, Regina was bracing herself against her front door. Leery of even the simple act of going outside, Regina forced herself to take a deep breath. And then another. With trembling hands, she opened it.

  
  


And was immediately greeted with the slumped form of ice-encrusted blonde hair.

  
  


“What the- Emma!”

  
  


With the door no longer propping her upwards, the sheriff spilled into the house, lips cracked from the cold, her skin tinged an unhealthy shade of blue. Her fingers were curled into a fist, as if still poised to knock.

  
  


“Have you been out here all night?!” Regina nearly tripped over the blonde in her effort to crouch down next to her, hands immediately grasping the savior's shoulder and shaking her lightly. Then slapping her gently across the face when that yielded no reaction. “Emma?! Emma, wake up, please!” Emma's skin was ice cold. With a frantic fury, she scuffled for the blonde's wrist, searching, praying for there to be a pulse. “Emma!”

  
  


The soft, garbled groan that slipped past blue lips was music to her ears. “...Rgina?”

  
  


“Oh, thank god!” she gasped. Without a second thought, Regina gripped the idiot woman under the arms, and hauled her into the warmth of her house, heading straight into her study. She knew it was of utmost importance to get Emma's core temperature up. A flick of her wrist had a burning fire roaring.

  
  


In her hazed mind, Emma cracked a wry grin, glossy eyes focusing on the fire first and then Regina's careworn face. “Mmm... rmantic.” The former queen merely rolled her eyes. Another wrist motion had Emma immediately stripped of her cold, wet clothing.“Heeeey! S'a lil forrrrwurd, dunchu think?” she slurred, her body nearing collapse.

  
  


“Shut up, idiot.” Regina growled under her breath, replacing Emma's wet clothes with warm, dry ones and conjuring as many blankets as she could to entwine closely around Emma's body.

  
  


Hazy eyes blinked at the gruffness in her voice, and Emma's lower lip jutted out in a pout. “...Gina?” Emma grunted, her head tipping forward. There was something very important. Something she had to make sure the other woman knew. “M'srry.”

  
  


“I know,” Regina sighed off-handedly, fully engrossed, for the moment, in her task of getting the Savior warm. Her fingers flashed, and the inner ear thermometer that was generally kept in the bathroom upstairs was in her hand. “Don't talk, dear.”

  
  


When the former queen tried to tilt Emma's lolling head into a proper position, wet, tangled hair would block her path to the savior's ears every time. With a frustrated grunt, Regina snapped her fingers, and the matted locks were no longer a problem, braided in a long plait and out of her way.

  
  


“Heeey!” Emma grunted, “My hair...” Her head fell obediently into place where Regina guided it, even as weak fingers tried to explore what Regina had done.

  
  


Knocking those feeble fingers away from the hurried french braid and back into the folds of her burrito of blankets, Regina gave a frustrated groan of irritation. “It was in my way,” she said by way of explanation. “Now stay still.” She inserted the thermometer quickly, with skills long practiced on a squirmy boy who'd had far too many head colds in his younger years. The machine beeped after only a second or two. Just over 91 degrees. Far too low. She needed to raise Emma's temperature from the inside.

  
  


Another snap of her fingers and a steaming mug of tea was in her hands. Guiding Emma's fingers to grasp the cup, she gently tried to steer it in the direction of the savior's mouth. “Can you drink this?”

  
  


Emma tried to focus bleary eyes on the mug, blinking at it furiously as if that would help. “I ...dun' feel so good....” she groaned.

  
  


“Try to drink,” Regina pressed, tipping the stubborn blonde head back a little further.

  
  


“Yer really preedy, ya know?”

  
  


“I'm aware, dear. Now drink.”

  
  


With all the coordination of an inebriated tyrannosaurus, Emma attempted to follow Regina's hands and bring the heated liquid to her lips. Emma let out a low groan, her head falling listlessly to the side without Regina's hand to hold her up. When the attempted drinking failed rather spectacularly even with Regina's help and resulted in nothing but a hot, wet puddle on the blanket, Regina felt her panic begin to grow even higher. No matter how annoying the blonde could be at times, she found herself with no desire whatsoever for Emma to die.

  
  


She exhaled in a frustrated huff, the warmth of her breath causing a tiny temperature differential for the half-second it waved over Emma's face.

  
  


Regina paused. Considered. In the back of her throat, a tiny lick of flame began to form, her own body immune to its heat just as her own hand was whenever she formed a fireball in it. Taking Emma's lax head between her hands, she exhaled again, directly over Emma's face, and felt the heat begin to wash over pale and sickly cheeks. Emma's eyelids fluttered, desperately trying to stay open.

  
  


Encouraged, Regina wet her lips, staring down at the idiot blonde in front of her, and closed the distance between their lips. Like resuscitating a drowned woman, heated air forced its way deep down into Emma's lungs.

  
  


She sputtered and coughed, and Regina pulled back long enough to let her, before pressing forward to push their lips together again. And again.

  
  


The fourth time, Emma kissed back. And Regina had to stop herself from continuing, pulling back with a surprised moan and grabbing again for the thermometer, inserting it with the same precision she'd shown earlier.

  
  


Emma smiled back at her, eyes still slightly unfocused, but her overall color far less blue than it had been. “Tha wassniiice,” she purred.

  
  


“I should hope so,” Regina murmured, exhaling a breath she didn't know she'd been holding when Emma's core temperature showed a healthy 97. With Emma clearly out of danger, Regina allowed herself a single smile of relief, and then promptly shook the Savior the rest of the way out of her near-coma.

  
  


“What the hell possessed you to spend the night on my porch?!”

  
  


“I dun'-”

  
  


“Shouldn't you have been with your one-handed wonder?!”

  
  


“Hook? Nahhh. Told 'im off affter he triiied to kishme agen. Thot'he could buy me. Wif 'is shhhip!. Lika...” she paused, her exhausted mind trying to find the right analogy. “...Somefing you buy,” she decided with firmness.

  
  


Regina felt her grip tighten on the blankets surrounding Emma, her irritation melting away as unpleasant memories began to swell through her mind. Images of Snow's repulsive father on bended knee before her, buying away her life when her mother gleefully accepted on her behalf, of her own hellish life stuck in a castle forced to care for a child she despised, flashed violently through her mind. With an intense amount of will, she forced the thoughts away, thinking instead of Henry's smile, of his arms around her as he hugged her and told her he loved her. Of the stupid, determined look on Emma's face right now when she finished talking.

  
  


“But jus'kus he gav'his shtupid boat upfer me dun' mean I owe him nuffin!”

  
  


Swallowing roughly, Regina focused on Emma's face, returning to the here and now with a firm kick to her unpleasant memories. “Very true,” she agreed quietly. “You don't owe him a thing. Now...” she stepped back to situate Emma more comfortably on the couch. “Get some rest, idiot.” She pressed a hand just over Emma's heart, muttering a charm under her breath to keep Emma from freezing, should she ever try something so foolish again. And it was a strong possibility, in this weather.

  
  


“...R'gina?”

  
  


“Yes?”

  
  


Emma's eyes were already closed, her body completely relaxed as she drifted quickly closer to slumber. “M'really sry 'bout messin up you an Robin. …I wan' you teh be happy.” Her heavy, even breathing that followed was evidence enough that by the time she finished talking, she was already asleep.

  
  


Regina felt tears spring yet again to her eyes, and looked away as her hand dashed up to wipe them away. “...So do I.” With another sigh, she wrapped the ends of the thick, blue blanket more thoroughly around the idiot savior, pressing a quick kiss to a fevered forehead before she was even conscious of doing it. When she realized, she pulled quickly back with a furtive glance to make sure Emma was well and truly asleep. When she saw she was, Regina rose quickly, and left the room with tears once again in her eyes.

  
  


In her sleep, a small, contented smile flickered to life on Emma's lips.

  
  


 


	4. Broken Boughs and Blackened Leaves

**IV.**

  


Though incredibly tempted to close the door leading to her study, Regina left it open. Simply closing the door on her problem would not make it go away. And like it or not, at the moment, the Savior seemed intent on being her problem. After wiping away her tears, the Queen lingered in the doorway, watching over Emma from afar, almost afraid that if she took her eyes off the difficult woman for one moment, her chest would stop rising and falling. She refused to think about why she cared so much, or just how badly the threat of Emma's death had scared her.

  


While the time in her own life when she'd have gladly snuffed out that breath herself had long since passed, Regina couldn't help but be unsettled by how much she actually cared for the other woman. And she knew that not all of it was due to Henry.

  


Before she could linger overlong in these unsettling thoughts, there was a brisk, demanding knock at her door.

  


Whipping her head around to the source of the noise, Regina's brow furrowed. Her heard turned back to the slumbering woman in her study, a tiny smile falling into place when she saw that Emma was still blissfully asleep.

  


The door pounded again, this time quickly followed by an angry-sounding, “Regina! Open the door!”

  


Regina knew that voice. Her smile quickly fell, replaced by a look that could quite possibly have curdled milk. Rolling her eyes at the demand, the former Queen closed the door to the study with a flick of her fingers, and strode down the few steps of her entryway to the front door.

  


Yet another imperious “Regina!” rang out before she briskly opened the door, startling Snow as her hand was poised to knock yet again.

  


Regina tried not to sneer, not even bothering to waste her best politician's smile on the fools in front of her. For Snow was only part of a trio of imbeciles at her door, it seemed. David and the surly dwarf both glared at her with angry questions in their eyes.

  


For once, she wasn't entirely sure what she'd done to deserve them. “Can I help you?”

  


Snow seemed incredibly indignant for a woman who'd given birth not long ago. Regina got the impression that had her former step-daughter been wearing a sword, it would once again be pointed at her throat. “What have you done to my daughter?!” She surged against the opened door like a tide, pressing herself inside.

 

Forced to take several wary steps backward or risk being smothered by an angry snow-whale, Regina blinked a bit belligerently. “You mean aside from making sure she stays alive?” She cast a wary glance towards the closed study door. Even exhausted as Emma was, it was unlikely that she'd be able to stay asleep for much longer.

  


From behind Snow, the dwarf also pressed into the house, nudging himself in front of Charming. “Shut it, sister! We all know you've cursed her!”

  


“What the hell are you talking about?!” Regina took another step backward, nearly tripping over the steps that led down to her entryway.

 

A rustle of a door opening to her left roused everyone's attention, and a very tired-looking Emma slid out of it. “R'gina?” She drew the blue blanket close around her shoulders, and her hair was still up in the french braid, though now quite a bit more tousled than it had been before. “What's all the shouting about?” Taking stock of the sight in front of her, she blinked, taken aback by the sudden flood of people that had not been there before. “uh... Mom?”

  


“Emma!” Snow gaped at the sight of her daughter, taking only a moment to stare before rushing forward into the house to run up to her, quickly trying to take the befuddled blonde's hands into her own. “Oh, Emma, honey, look at you! You're as cold as ice!”

 

“Yeah... uh... about that. I may have-”

  


Snow barely even stopped to hear, brushing away Emma's words with another glaring look over at Regina. “It's alright, honey. We know she cursed you. You've been making it snow all night.”

  


“What?!” Regina herself had had her eyes closed, slowly trying to count to ten before swiftly evicting all these encroachers from her property. But at this accusation, dark eyes flew open in indignation, angrily taking a step forward before being stopped by David's sword barring her path. Her eyes narrowed. “Don't make me hurt you, Charming. I'm not in the mood for this.”

  


Grumpy harrumphed, “Cause you know you're guilty!”

  


Regina's glare turned on him, a line of confusion quickly being replaced by anger.

  


Emma looked baffled. “What are you talking about? Regina didn't curse me!” Glancing over at her father, she scowled. “Put the sword away!”

  


But David did not, and he was joined by Grumpy, who was brandishing his pickaxe menacingly at the former Queen. “You probably don't even realize it, sister! She put a shard of the Bitter Glass in your eyes! Or your heart!” Regina glared daggers at him, her clenched fists beginning to glow with flame.

  


Snow tried a more gentle approach, running her hands swiftly up and down Emma's arms in weak effort to restore more heat. “That's why you're so cold, sweetie. All you're seeing is evil.”

  


“That doesn't make any sense!” Backing out of her mother's grip, Emma forced her way to Regina's side, causing both sword and axe to lift up slightly. “Regina didn't curse me!”

  


David was hesitating, unsure what to do with his sword now that Emma was in his way. “Yes, she did, Emma.”

  


“No, I most certainly did not!” Regina hissed, the fireballs nearly fully formed in her fists, trying to hold herself back from firing them, at least for a little longer. “Get out of my house before you make me hurt you!”

  


Snow reached for her daughter's hand, eager to draw her away from the former Queen. “Come on, honey. We'll get you home and figure out how to fix this.”

  


“I'm not going with you!”

  


“Emma, please. We're only trying to help you.” David stepped in closer, trying to reach his daughter even as she drew further away.

  


“I don't want your help!” Emma nearly screeched, her eyes taking on a dangerous glint. As the supposed 'good' guys gathered in on her from all sides, all their combined efforts at reassuring her were only making her feel trapped. Like Regina's had only seconds before, her hands were beginning to glow. But not with fire.

  


For Snow, it was all too reminiscent of their earlier encounter, and she took another wary step, trying to reach her daughter with one last entreaty. “Emma, ple-”

  


But the last step was one too many, and something within Emma snapped. “Leave me alone!” Her palms flew open. Shards of ice burst up from the floor in giant spikes, pinning her mother and father where they stood. Grumpy appeared to have suffered further, lurching to avoid the ice and stumbling to hit his head on the corner of the table in Regina's entryway.

  


Eyes wide in horror at what she'd done, Emma stared down at her traitorous hands. “I didn't...”

  


A hiss of pain from her right broke her out of her thoughts, and she nearly whimpered as Regina pressed fingers to her own cheek and came away red. A single spike had flown in her direction, probably only a fluke. Even surprised as she was by the sudden outburst, the fireballs already in her hands had made quick work of it. Still, her reaction had not quite been fast enough, and the tiny sliver that remained had sliced a thin line of red across her cheek as she failed to dodge.

  


“Regina!” Emma screeched, her eyes frantic as they traced the cut she'd inflicted. “Oh, god, Regina, I'm sorry!”

  


Running a thumb over her own cheek, the former Queen exhaled raggedly as she observed the blood. “It's fine, Emma.”

  


“It's not fine!” Emma insisted, her breaths coming in ragged gasps. “I hurt you!” She was nearly hyperventilating now, her hands still glowing with blue light that flashed in spurts of snow.

  


Regina tried to keep her voice low, slowly approaching. “Emma, you need to calm down. Your magic is overwhelming you.”

  


But Emma was only barely hearing her, shaking her head as she stared down in horror at her hands. “I can't- I can't!” She turned abruptly on her heels, running out of the foyer and towards the door. Her glowing hands only barely reached for the knob before a burst of ice connected with the door, reducing it to splinters instantly.

  


“Emma!” Regina rushed after her, forced to cry out and protect her head from the splinters of wood and ice. “Emma, wait! I can help you!”

  


“I don't want to hurt you!” Emma cried over her shoulder as she rushed out the door, another blast of ice shooting from her hands and sealing itself over the doorway, trapping Regina and everyone else inside.

  


“Emma!” Ridiculously, Regina pounded on the wall of ice covering her door with her bare fists, before remembering herself and those same fists formed fireballs.

  


“You care...” Snow breathed in confused wonder, still entrapped in ice above on the landing.

  


“Of course I care!” Regina snapped, her anger at the insipid woman fueling the balls of fire that were eating away at the ice in her path.

  


David's brow wrinkled as he thrashed against the ice holding his sword hand captive. “...But you cursed her. You took a shard of the Bitter Glass and cursed her heart to freeze.”

  


Snarling, Regina actually drew her attention away from the barrier before her to scream at the idiots behind her. “I did _not_!”

  


Snow blinked, wanting to believe. “But she was so cold...”

  


Regina turned back to the ice, her fire finally starting to yield results, though the hole she was creating was not yet large enough to fit through. “She's _cold,_ you imbeciles, because your daughter decided to prove just how idiotic your genes are and slept on my doorstep last night!”

  


“...What?”

  


“She was in acute hypothermia when I finally found her, and I only just got her back to a safe temperature when you showed up! And now, thanks to you, she's probably well on her way to killing herself again.” With another surge of fire, Regina burst through the rest of the ice.

  


Snow was shaking her head, wanting to believe Regina but so very confused. “...She was here? But then, how....”

 

“We have to go after her.” David interrupted, arching his back to try and force the ice to break. All he did was strain his hands. “Get us loose.”

  


A wave of her hand and Regina was once more clothed in her winter wardrobe. “Get yourselves loose! Get your dwarf some medical attention and get the hell out of my house!”

  


“But we-” David was looking abashedly down at the unconscious form of Grumpy, as if he'd forgotten he'd been hurt.

  


“And don't you have an infant to take care of?!” Regina snarled once again, and with a final wave of her fingers, her door was repaired and she rushed out of it and into the snow.

 

* * *

 

  


Much later, a far colder, wetter, and more exhausted Snow and Charming finally made it into their apartment. Grumpy had woken up, a little dizzy but no worse for wear, and they had all decided that, for once, they would take Regina's advice, and go home for now. There was nothing more they could do. And they were exhausted, and very much looking forward to resting for a while.

 

Upon opening the door, they were instantly greeted with a screaming baby and a frantic-looking Henry trying to rock said baby in his arms. “Where have you been?! I've been calling you for ages! He's hungry and there's no milk!”

  


Snow groaned and hurried to take the baby, barely even out of her coat before she'd plopped down on the bed and pressed the baby to her chest. Of course she'd forgotten to pump before running off this morning.

  


Looking sheepishly down, David pulled his phone out of his pocket, finally noticing the seven missed calls and eight texts from Henry. “...Sorry, Henry,” he groaned, sinking down onto a chair in the kitchen.

  


“So... what happened? Did you figure out what Ruby wanted?” Henry sighed, looking decidedly more relieved now that the baby's parents were actually back.

  


Honestly, that had been so long ago that David had nearly forgotten about Belle and Rumpel and the entire phone call that had started this whole mess. “...Yeah.”

  


With heavy hearts, David began telling his grandson all that had occurred since the morning. When he got to the suspicions that it had been a curse Regina had put on Emma, Henry protested. Angrily.

  


“How could you think it was Mom?! Didn't you learn anything from that time when you thought Archie was dead?!”

  


“Henry... the evidence did point...”

  


“Evidence?! The way it sounds, you learned it _could possibly be a mirror_ and then decided it must be Mom! You don't even know for sure that this Bitter Glass or whatever is involved at all, do you?!”

  


“...Well... no. But it doesn't matter. On the way out of the shop, we were attacked by Emma. Or, at least... it looked like Emma. In a blue dress. With her hair braided, and she fired snow at us, and-”

  


Henry stood up. “Seriously? The town's covered in snow, you saw a figure with blonde hair in a braid and wearing a blue dress, and you think it's _Emma_?! This is obviously Elsa.”

  


His grandparents blinked at him confusedly. “Who's Elsa?”

  


Henry continued to look at them as though they were truly the idiots his mother always accused them of being. “ 'Let It Go'? ...Queen Elsa of Arendelle?….How can you guys not have seen Frozen?! I'm thirteen and I've seen Frozen.”

  


“Arendelle?” David echoed, frowning. “I think I remember a Princess Elsa...”

  


Snow furrowed her brow, rocking her infant son slightly as Neal fed. “Wasn't she the one who was forced to abdicate when those rumors about her only being an adopted ward started circulating?”

  


Henry filed away this information for future use. And decided, not for the first time in his life, that if anyone was going to be the one to get to the truth around here, it wasn't going to be Snow and her Prince Charming. As usual, someone else was going to have to do the actual work. This time, he decided, it would be him. He waited, while they still muttered amongst themselves, until baby Neal started fussing again, needing to be burped after eating. Not that the new parents necessarily knew that was what was wrong. Henry grabbed his coat, scarf, and backpack, sent a small, apologetic little smile to his uncle, and then left the apartment to the bumbling new (again) parents.

 

They never even noticed him leaving.  


	5. For All Things Turn to Barrenness

**V.**

  
  


Regina shouted in the cold, magically amplifying her voice in the hopes that she'd be heard. “Emma, I'm not angry with you!” _For once_ , she added silently. “Please, I can help you! Just come back!”

 

She thought she saw a flash of blue, and turned quickly in its direction. There, sitting on the snowy remains of a fallen tree, was a blonde head with a french braid. Her back was turned.

 

“Emma!” Regina ran to her, more than a little awkward in the snow, but making it closer nonetheless.

  
  


The blonde head turned in her direction, wide eyes staring up at her in fear and anger.

  
  


Coming to a halt a few feet from her, Regina stared. Snow fell unfettered onto her face, but she didn't bother to brush it away. “You. ...You're not Emma.”

  
  


The face was Emma's. The voice, when it spoke, was Emma's, too. “Finally, someone understands.” But the expressions were wrong. The inflections were wrong. The pain in that voice, the lonely lines etched on that face, however, were all too reminiscent of the Savior.

  
  


And though the beat was different than when in Emma's presence, beneath her breast, Regina felt her heart cry out for the young woman before her, knowing that pain all too well. She swallowed, warily coming only a little closer. “I don't. I don't understand. Suppose you tell me. Who are you?”

  
  


“That's what I was trying to find out.” Looking closer, Regina could make out the tracks of tears running down the woman's cheeks. “I'm Emma!” the woman laughed. A bitter, painful sounding thing, wracked with sobs. “At least everyone seems to think that I am. Honestly, I don't believe I could even tell you anymore.”

  
  


Regina took another step forward, keeping her hands at her sides, trying to appear nonthreatening. The woman in front of her was obviously in an incredibly emotional state. “...Why are you here?”

  
  


“Weren't you listening?!” she hissed, choking back additional tears. The snow around them picked up, beginning to fall faster. “I came to find out who I am! I broke nearly every law of magic I could find, until I tore a hole in the very fabric of the realms. And fell into the past.”

  
  


Regina forced herself to take a breath. “You... time-travelled?”

  
  


Another sorrowful, mournful laugh. “Not quite what I expected it to be.” Her words were slightly slurred, almost as if she'd been drinking. A closer glance at her hands revealed a silver flask that Regina was fairly certain she'd seen before somewhere. Hook's.

  
  


“Nothing ever is.” Regina agreed with her own bitter voice of experience.

  
  


“Indeed. One moment I'm watching some prince be accosted by a forest bandit, and the next a glittering, scale-covered man is giggling in my ears.” Her words began to slur further, her tone losing its laugh and gaining more and more anger. “...He called me a copy. A replicate. Some... confusion of magic that never should have mixed, combining at the moment of my birth and creating two where there only should have been one. Useless, spare, worthless!” She was nearly screaming now, her eyes whirling in ice blue. The snow was falling faster and faster, the wind racing around them in a hurricane of cold.

  
  


“And then he trapped me in a jar and hid me away. And the next thing I know, I come out here. And everyone is calling me Emma, and foul pirates are trying to lay hands and lips and whatever else upon me, until I'm forced to freeze off bits of them to get away!”

  
  


Regina wet her lips, her fingers outstretching in a vaguely placating manner. This woman had barely any control over her magic, and in her current state, she could well freeze Storybrooke completely. She had to get her to calm. “I understand your pain. But this storm-.”

  
  


She was interrupted by a screech of anguish. “You understand?! How can anyone _ever_ claim to understand?! I am nothing! Everything I am has always been a lie! There may well have never been an Elsa of Arendelle at all!”

  
  


“...Elsa?” Regina echoed, her voice colored with recognition. “...The ward. The one who would have been Queen.”

  
  


Bristling, the blonde stood from the log, the flask falling, forgotten, into the snow. “That right was stolen from me! My existence was stolen from me!” At her words, the snow and ice began to grow truly violent. Shards of ice fell from the sky, whipping around Regina in a crushing fury. “If I cannot be who I was raised to be, and if I cannot discover who I truly am, then I'll just have to be who everyone here believes that I am!”

  
  


“Please!” Regina cried out as shards of ice grazed across her skin, raising her hands and casting a barrier of flame around herself. “You can't be Emma!” she cried.

  
  


“Why not?! What makes her so damned special?!”

  
  


The former Queen thought on it as her fire melted the raging storm around her, as Elsa's burning, painful gaze met her own. She thought of what made the savior different from the woman in front of her. She thought of Emma's smile, her laugh. Her damned stubbornness. In her chest, Regina's heart grew warm, fueling her fire, and despite the frozen destruction around her, Regina couldn't help but smile. “...Everything.” She swallowed again, meeting Elsa's eyes. And remembering why she was out here in the first place. “...I have to find her.” She turned, fire blazing around her, and began to head back out into the snow.

  
  


“So that's it. You're just like all the others!” A spire of ice shot by her head, followed in quick succession by an enormous arm of snow surging up to stop her in her tracks.

  
  


Crying out and unprepared for the suddenness of the onslaught, Regina's fire was enveloped by the crushing mass of snow.

  
  


“Regina!” A voice called out through the mire of winter, and she felt hands grabbing at her. Warm hands. Untouched by the cold around her. The snow was brushed vehemently from her face, revealing a very relieved-looking Savior.

  
  


“Emma?” She blinked, clinging like a limpet to the hold the blonde had on her hand. She could almost laugh at seeing the smile on the savior's face. And then shuddered as a furious woman in blue approached from behind her.

  
  


“Emma, look out!”

  
  


“You!”

  
  


Whirling around, Emma blinked up at a face identical to her own. “...Wha?”

  
  


“This is all your fault!” Emma watched her own face snarl with near animalistic fury, and could only stand there as her apparent evil twin sent spikes of frozen hate shooting in her direction.

  
  


“No!” The chilled form of Regina lurched up, covering her body with her own. Tight hands clenched around her shoulders, and signature purple smoke quickly enveloped them just as the ice spikes would have shot through them. When Emma next opened her eyes, she was back in Regina's study, and they were alone.

  
  


The brunette was holding her tightly with one hand. The other pressed briefly over her own heart, before quickly rubbing away whatever discomfort had caused her to release Emma with that hand.

  
  


Emma whirled on Regina. “...What the hell was that?!” she exclaimed.

  
  


* * *

 

  
  


Two glasses of scotch later, the Savior and the Evil Queen were seated on the floor of the study in front of a blazing fire, blankets once again wrapped tightly around one of them. Emma, however, didn't feel cold at all. “...So... She's some kind of projection of me, isn't she? Some evil half or something?”

  
  


Regina shook her head, reaching for the bottle with a blanket- covered arm. “She isn't you. I know you.”

  
  


“Heh.” Emma's head tipped back, the back of it resting against the seat of the couch behind her. “That's what I said about you when we thought Archie....”

  
  


Regina put down the bottle, taking Emma's hands in her own and shifting so that she could look in her eyes. “I know your magic. I've combined with it enough times that I know exactly how it feels and smells and tastes. This snow storm, the ice? It's nearly identical, yes. But it's not you. It's too... bitter.”

  
  


“Huh. Guess Mom's right, then. That's why they call it the Bitter Glass?”

  
  


Regina almost laughed, shaking her head. “I'm sorry, dear. But your parents are idiots. I don't even know what that is. It sounds like something from a Yeats poem.”

  
  


Despite the direness of the situation, Emma cracked a small smile. “...Henry was studying Yeats in school just before we left New York.”

  
  


They fell into a somewhat awkward silence. Until Emma couldn't help herself. “So... if my magic isn't bitter.... I taste... good, then?”

  
  


“You're insufferable, Miss Swan.”

  
  


She smirked again. “I do seem to remember you kissing me not too long ago.”

  
  


Regina's cheeks flushed, though if pressed, she'd have said it was from the heat of the fire.“That was to save your life, you ridiculous woman.” Regina grumbled, tempted to sink her head into her burrow of blankets.

  
  


Silence fell over them for a moment, before Emma raised her eyebrows. “So... you'd need to do it again to know how I taste?”

  
  


A tiny sigh left the other woman's lips. Emma couldn't tell if it was exasperated or surprised. “Emma...” Regina was looking at her lips, as if considering.

  
  


Green eyes looked up in faint hope, like a puppy thinking it might get a treat. “...Yes?”

  
  


“Shut up.” And she leaned forward as if to shut her up herself, her face coming only a breath away from pressing her lips to the savior's.

 

And then her phone rang.

 

 


	6. In the Dim Glass the Demons Hold

**VI.**

 

Emma nearly swore, and almost leaned the rest of the way forward herself, cellphone be damned, but Regina pulled back before she could.

 

“That's Henry's ringtone,” she explained almost apologetically, and rose to collect her phone, leaving Emma to bemoan her absence and grumble internally about their son and his horrible timing.

 

“Henry?”

 

“Mom!” Henry's voice over the phone was loud enough that Emma could hear it, still on the floor. “Did you find my Mom? Is she with you?”

 

Regina's brow furrowed just a little. “Yes, Emma's here.”

 

“Good!” yelped Henry. “Are you guys okay? Put me on speakerphone. I want to talk to both of you.”

 

“Yes, Henry, we're both fine.” Regina replied, hitting the speaker function as she did so, and then coming back to sit on the couch as Emma hauled herself up onto it as well.

 

“Hey, kid!” Emma called.

 

“Grams and Gramps just told me what's going on! I-” A significant crackle of static broke into Henry's words.

 

Regina clenched the phone a little tighter, her volume rising. “Henry? Honey, I can barely hear you.” There was a sudden 'whoosh' sound from Henry's side of the conversation, followed by what could only have been the sound of their son's teeth chattering. “Henry, are you outside?!”

 

There was a poignant pause before Henry replied, sheepishly. “...Maybe.”

 

Emma could tell Regina was only about half a second away from erupting like a concern-filled volcano. Henry must have known it, too, because he spoke up before Regina had the chance to explode.

“I'm on the way home. I had to come see you!”

 

“Where are you?!”

 

“The corner of 5th and Main Street. I-”

 

Regina was gone before the next words were out of his mouth, purple smoke in her place, leaving Emma gaping at the empty air. A second later and the former Queen returned, their heavily-bundled son wrapped tightly around her waist, and a lecture already going. “-that you would go outside in this weather! Do you have any idea what could have happened?! Were you going to walk all the way from Snow's apartment?!” Regina's voice was nearly only a shrill screech.

 

“I know it was dumb, but I couldn't be around them anymore! Not when they were saying that you...” Henry drawled off, biting his lip as tears began to bloom in his eyes. “...I knew it couldn't be you,” he finished, much quieter.

 

Regina instantly softened. “Oh, Henry...” She knelt down to his level and pulled the boy into her arms, holding him tightly. Her heart swelled in her chest, and for a moment, she almost believed she could melt the entire snowstorm outside with the love she felt now that she knew her son still believed in her.

 

She felt Emma's presence next to her, and looked up to the see the Savior kneeling beside them, wrapping her arms around their son, too. “Of course it's not your Mom, kid.”

 

They basked in their little family hug for a long moment, before Henry finally squirmed away with a wipe to his eyes and a bright smile. “I know! It's gotta be Elsa, right?”

 

Blinking in confusion, Regina pulled back with a start. “How do you-?”

 

“Frozen!” Henry chirped, all smiles again. “It's a new Disney movie. It came out while you were in the Enchanted Forest. In it, Elsa loses control of her magic and plunges Arendelle into deep winter. In summer!”

 

Regina glanced over at Emma, “And you didn't think to mention this?”

 

Wincing, the blonde just shrugged, answering their son. “Yeah, it's Elsa, kid. And for some reason, she looks exactly like me. It's freaky.”

 

Pausing to digest this new information, Henry just shrugged. “Weird. But all we need to do is convince her to unfreeze everything!”

 

“I don't think it will be that simple, dear.”

 

“Sure it will! All we need to do is find-”

  
  


The door of the mansion burst inwards in a swirl of magic, flurries rushing into the house like a vacuum, blurring around the form of the woman who now filled the doorway.

  
  


Regina and Emma rushed out of the study at the sound, followed quickly by their inquisitive son. “Elsa!” Henry finished in a squeak of surprise.

  
  


Summoning a fireball, Regina quickly shoved her son behind her and into Emma's arms, instantly on guard and her eyes blazing with fury. “What the hell are you doing in my home?!” she snarled.

  
  


Elsa answered with a sneer of her own, blue magic spiraling around her palm. “Ending this.”

  
  


Standing in front of their son, Emma stepped up to Regina's side. Her control of her magic was shaky at best, but she wasn't about to let some creepy evil twin 'end' the two people she cared most about in the world. “I don't know why you look like me or how you even found us, but there is no way I'm going to let you hurt my family!”

  
  


Elsa raised an eyebrow, ignoring the bravado and responded instead to the unasked question. “I followed the ice that wasn't mine.”

  
Wriggling out of Emma's grasp, Henry ran out in front of his mothers, standing boldly between them and the icy, angry woman. “Please, you need to stop! I know you're upset and hurt! I know you just want to get home to Arendelle!”

  
  


“Henry!” Regina latched onto him, pulling him back against her body. “What are you doing?!”

  
  


For the first time in his presence, Elsa's gaze fell on him, her throat swallowing visibly, as if not realizing there was a child involved in all this. The swirl of magic in her palm considerably lessened. “...What do you know about Arendelle?”

  
  


Held close against his mothers, Henry looked bravely into Elsa's uncertain eyes. “I know it's where you're from. And you have a sister there, and you love her.”

  
  


Elsa nearly screamed in a mix of rage and anguish. “Anna isn't my sister!” she hissed. “We were raised together, but as soon as she found out that I was found abandoned in a tree a baby, she and that manipulative terror of a prince she married wanted nothing to do with me! She stripped me of my titles and sent me away!”

  
  


“....What? A tree?” Emma gaped, while Regina once more pulled Henry to safety out of Elsa's path, though even she found herself staring at the admission.

 

Elsa suddenly looked nervous. “...I was found in a hollowed tree, wrapped in a blanket with...”

  
  


“...Purple letters spelling your name in the corner?”

  
  


It was Elsa's turn to stare. Around her, the snowstorm began to abate as her anger fell away, replaced with shock and confusion as Elsa stared at Emma. “How did you-?”

 

“Your blanket, did it look like this?” With a dramatic turn of her wrist, Emma summoned her baby blanket, silently cheering when the worn mass of yarn actually settled into her hand. Her lessons were paying off.

 

Reaching out almost instinctively for the blanket, Elsa just stared at it for a long moment. Her fingers traced over the swirls of purple spelling Emma's name. “This is...”

 

“Mine.” Emma took a step closer, keeping Regina and Henry behind her. “I was found in a tree, too. It was a portal. My parents used it to send me to another land.”

 

Elsa was still staring at the blanket, fingering the faded purple ribbon. “...But... the letters were ruined in the snow. Only the first and last ones were legible.”

  
  


Even the air between them seemed to pause as everyone digested this. Another tree, another baby. Another white blanket spelling out the letters E – – A.

  
  


Henry broke the stunned silence first, with a whoop of excitement. “Oh, I get it! It makes total sense.”

  
  


It was Regina's turn to share a facial expression with Emma: that of bewilderment. “How in the world does this make any bit of sense, Henry?”

  
  


But it was Emma that Henry was turning to, so excited that his words began to run together. “Mom, Remember we got really bored last summer and binge-watched all the Star Treks on Netflix? This is just like when Commander Riker's transporter signal got mixed up in the distortion field on that weird planet, and the transporter made two Rikers! You were in the wardrobe at the same time the curse hit, and somehow, it transported you to two different places! You're both the same Emma!”

  
  


For a moment, all three women looked just about as stunned as anyone could possibly be. Emma broke through it first, being the only one who would understand anything at all about what Henry had just said. “Henry, life isn't an episode of Star Trek!”

  
  


Rolling his eyes in a manner universal to all thirteen-year-olds, Henry gave a dramatic sigh. “Next Generation, Mom.”

  
  


“Whatever!”

  
  


Henry gave her a horrified look, speaking volumes of 'I can't believe you just said that.' Instead, he shook his head, deciding that his mother's uncultured opinion of 23rd verses 24th century Federation could wait for another day. “Mom, you're the daughter of Snow White, I think just about anything is possible here.”

  
  


“We're fairy tales, not science fiction!”

  
  


“Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science!”

  
  


“Where'd you hear that? A comic book?”

  
  


“No, it was in the library!”

  
  


“Regina, please tell our son that this isn't possible.”

  
  


The former Queen breathed out a ragged sigh, shaking her head. “...Honestly, dear, I know very little about the tree that brought you to this world. But... Henry does have a point that fantasy and science fiction are more alike than they aren't.” She glanced over at Elsa, who seemed to be shell-shocked. “...You said you cast a spell to take you back into the past. To find out where you came from.”

 

“...Yes.” Elsa’s voice was suddenly meek and afraid. The conversation had been hard to follow, with so many terms being thrown around that she had no definition for, but her eyes were wide and uncertain.

 

Henry took up the conversation again, nearly bouncing up and down in his excitement. “And it took you to the same time Mom went back to, when Snow and Prince Charming were just meeting! That _is_ where you came from! They're your parents, too!”

  
  


“But... I-?”

  
  


The words Elsa had said to her out in the snow suddenly made much more sense, now, and Regina smiled down at her son before looking again at Elsa. “That must be what Rumpelstiltskin meant when he called you a copy. He somehow saw all of this.”

 

“Rumpel?” Emma questioned. “You ran into the Dark One in the past, too?”

 

Elsa gave a blank look.

 

“The glittering man, dear,” Regina prompted.

 

“Oh,” Elsa nodded, a fury coming into her eyes at the reminder of him. “Yes. He tricked me. He told me he would help and instead trapped me inside an urn!”

 

“If he ran into you after Hook and I saw him... he wouldn't have known how to handle a second time-traveling Savior.” Emma furrowed her brow. “...And Hook was messing with an urn right before I reversed the spell.”

 

“So Mom brought you here when she came back from the past!”

  
  


“So... We're really the same?” It was Emma's turn to blink and sound confused.

  
  


“...I suppose we must be.”

  
  


There was a significant pause as the two identicals looked at one another. Emma finally smiled, and Elsa echoed it, looking a little sheepish and still uncertain, but no longer filled to the brim with anger. After a moment, she looked over at Regina, being the only one in the room who had a full handle on her magic. “...Is there some kind of way to verify this idea?”

  
  


The former Queen considered. Her head was beginning to spin with all this new information, and without realizing it, her hand was rubbing over her heart. She wished she'd fixed the door again. It was getting incredibly cold in here with all the snow. Inspiration dawned. “A snowflake,” she said suddenly. “Conjure snowflakes. If the two of you are not essentially the same person, then they should be incredibly different from one another.”

  
  


Once more, the two blondes looked uncertainly at one another, and then down at their hands. Hesitantly, they moved in the same wrist-flick, bursts of light blue magic dancing around their raised fingertips.

  
  


When the magic cleared, two snowflakes remained. And they were perfectly identical.

  
  


“We're the same,” Emma breathed, incredibly confused, but trying to make sense of it all. “You're... me.”

  
  


Regina, while trying to wrap her mind around the entire idea herself, was still struck with how amusing it was to see that look on two identical faces. She turned to the one she knew best, smiling. “No, dear. You merely started out the same. You are Emma, and she is Elsa. Your lives are your own.” Her hand raised, slowly caressing over Emma's cheek. “There could only ever be one of you, dear.”

  
  


Unknowingly, she was swaying a bit on her feet, the turn towards Emma upsetting her equilibrium far more than it should have.

  
  


Emma shivered. Regina's fingers were ice cold. “Regina, I...” she began, still trying to grasp it all, but concerns for the puzzle of herself and Elsa evaporated instantly.

  
  


The former Queen's hair was turning a vibrant white.

 


	7. The Glass of Outer Weariness

**VII.**

  


“Regina?!”

  


Her eyes looked glazed, her balance still off, and it took a second too long for Regina to right herself. “...Emma,” she groaned, and then her legs gave out, collapsing into the stunned savior's arms.

 

Henry's excitement over suddenly having a bizarre new family member turned quickly to terror. He was at his mother's side in an instant. “Mom!” He grabbed at her hands, and then looked, horrified, at Elsa. “....She's freezing!”

  


Elsa swallowed thickly, recognizing the symptoms instantly, and her voice wavered as she spoke. “...I must have frozen her heart during our fight." Her eyes lingered on Regina's trembling form. Anything to avoid looking at the devastated expression on Henry's face. "But it usually works much faster than this. ...Her heart must be very strong.”

  


Cradling the former Queen in her arms, Emma was near-frantic, almost shaking Regina as she tried to stop her from freezing. “What do we do?!” 

  


“Only an act of True Love can thaw a frozen heart,” Elsa murmured somberly.

  


Immediately, Henry bent over his mother and pressed a kiss to her forehead. He waited for the familiar light and warmth of curse-breaking magic to flood through him. It didn't. Regina remained as cold as the air outside.“It didn't work?! No way! She Truly Loves me! She's broken curses with that love before!” He glared at Elsa, silently demanding she make this work.

 

Raising her hands in supplication, Elsa could only shake her head. “...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to.... This may require a different sort of love.” Cautiously, she waved a hand over the broken doorway, a new layer of ice rising to close them off from the storm of her own making.

 

“We have to keep her warm.” Emma murmured, rubbing her hands over Regina's shoulders and arms, and overall feeling a remarkable sense of deja vu. “Into the study!” Emma hissed, half dragging, half carrying the shivering form of Henry's other mother into the room she herself had thawed in only a few hours ago. Henry rushed to help, and together, they propped the slowly freezing woman up before the fire.

  
“Emma...” Regina's lips were blue with cold, her teeth clicking together as she fought to keep her eyes open. “I need to tell you...”

 **  
**“It's okay," Emma tried to smile, holding her tight. "I's okay, Regina. We're gonna get you warm, okay? And then me and you and Henry..." she glanced over at the other blonde, sitting off to the side with a sullen, sorrowful look on her face. Emma cleared her throat, and looked back down to the woman in her arms. "...And Elsa, too, why not? We're gonna go to Granny's and order the biggest damn burger in the world, okay? You just need to get warm first, all right? Do that for me..." Emma was rambling, she knew, but the words seemed to spew out of her without hesitation, anything to keep Regina looking at her.

 

Regina managed a tiny shake of her head, as if amused by the Savior's antics, even now. "Breathe..." she murmured.

 

Forcing a watery smile, Emma took a breath as ordered. "See? You've gotta stay with me, Regina. Who else is gonna remind me to breathe?"

 

White locks shook again, Regina doing her best to clench her fingers inside Emma's grip. "No," she hissed. Every breath was wheezing, now, as the ice built up in her lungs, forcing contorted hisses of pain out with every breath. "Warm... breath. Like this morning."

 

Green eyes dawned with comprehension. "...Right. I remember.” She had no real idea how to do this. But magic was emotion, and right now, she had a plethora of that. Taking a deep breath, Emma tried to focus on the opposite of making snow, thinking of the warmth Regina had shared with her earlier today. She concentrated on that feeling, on how she'd felt waking up cradled in Regina's arms and staring up at her face so full of tenderness and caring and relief. She felt a small ball of heat tickling at the back of her throat.  Lowering her lips to Regina's, she breathed the heat of the flame into her lungs. All the while, her mind was practically screaming: 'Don't you dare leave me.'

 

It took several long moments, but finally, Regina began to cease shivering. Her hair inked gradually back to its former blackness, and when Emma finally had to pull away, Regina's eyes were staring up at her, full of love and warmth. "...Any excuse to kiss me again, right, Miss Swan?" she offered a tiny smirk.

 

With a gasping, elated laugh, Emma pressed the woman in her arms closer to her, staring down into those eyes, suddenly reminded of how they'd looked just before Henry had interrupted them with his phone call. “Regina? I-”

 

“...Shut up, Miss Swan.” Regina, in her wisdom, decided against the awkward, faltering words she knew were on the tip of Emma's tongue. She simply surged forward and kissed them away, smirking into Emma's lips as the blonde eagerly gave into the kiss, in full sight of her son. And sister?

 

“I knew it!” Henry whooped, before hurriedly averting his eyes when the kiss went on longer than was probably appropriate.

  
For her part, Elsa looked on, her pale cheeks coloring in shame, and her eyes more than a little longing. “This could have been my life...”

  
Henry put his hand on her shoulder, turning her attention away from where his moms were still kissing. Looking at Elsa was a little safer right now. “Your life can be whatever you want to make it. Write your own happy ending.”

  
“...How?”

  
“Well, to start, you could make it stop snowing.”

  
Elsa shook her head bitterly. “I don't know how.”

  
He only smiled. “Sure you do. Just look at them. What do you see?”

  
“...Care. Warmth. Love?”

  
He grinned again. “Love.” It had worked in the movie, after all.

  
“...I don't have anyone to love. I'm just a copy.”

  
“Haven't you figured it out? Your life has always been yours. You can find someone.”

  
“What, here? In this crazy world?”

  
“Why not? Besides, you've already got family here. You're my aunt.”

  
It seemed his mothers had finally pulled away from one another. Cheeks flushed from more than just the embarrassment that they'd just kissed in front of their son, Regina chuckled, looking over at him with a wry smile. “ ...Honestly, Henry. I'm starting to think there is no one out there who isn't related to you, dear.”

 

Henry burst out laughing.

 

And Elsa smiled with no trace of the anger or bitterness she'd shown earlier, her expression suddenly warm enough to melt even the coldest of winters

  
And it did.

 

* * *

**..........**

* * *

 

  


**_Six months later_ **

  


The doorbell rang.

  


The night outside was clear and bright, with nary a flake of snow in the sky, as the doors of 108 Mifflin opened to reveal Elsa's smiling face.

 

“Merry solstice!” Henry beamed at her, calling over his shoulder loudly, “Moms! Elsa's here!”

 

“Are you going to bellow so loudly for every member of your family? You'll be hoarse within five minutes!” Granny's harrumphing voice echoed from the kitchen.

 

The familiar clicking of heels on wood immediately preceded Regina's appearance, the former Queen shaking her head and fondly muttering, “Why on earth did I ever allow that woman into my kitchen?”

 

Emma wasn't far behind her, grinning widely at the two figures now coming in from the warm winter night. “Hey there, Evil Twin,” Emma grinned widely, pulling her not-quite sister into her arms for a hug before smiling at the redhead by her side, bearing a tinfoil-covered pie pan. “Happy Solstice, Me-”

 

“And tell Merida to hurry up and get into this kitchen!” groused Granny.

 

With a laugh and a shake of wild red curls, a thick Scottish lilt hollered back, “Ah'm coming ye daft old bat!” Rolling her eyes, Merida pressed a kiss to Elsa's cheek before heading off into the kitchen with her pie. Much laughing and carrying on erupted from the room shortly after.

 

Emma sent a worried look after her, before addressing Elsa in a hushed tone. “...She didn't make the pie, did she?”

 

“Ah heard that!”

 

Emma grinned, Regina shook her head, and the two women led Elsa into the dining room where she took a seat next to Belle. “Happy solstice, Elsa.” The librarian smiled.

 

Elsa returned the greeting, nodding at Ruby on Belle's other side. And ignored the fact that the two were very sneakily trying to hide the fact that they were holding hands under the table. And failing.

 

(They never could find a way to thaw Rumpel. Belle had had one last thought, and used the dagger to try and command him out of the ice. When it failed, it was discovered that the dagger he'd given Belle as their wedding commitment, was only a copy. She hadn't responded well to being betrayed. Again. She and Ruby had since grown very close.)

 

Later, when dinner had been eaten and everyone was almost entirely stuffed to the gills, Emma slipped away outside to stand on the porch. Big family gatherings were still very much a novelty, and got overwhelming quickly. Regina understood, and never seemed to mind when Emma had to slip away for a minute or two. She smirked when she felt the presence of her not-quite sister. “Hey, Evil Twin.”

 

Elsa only smiled at the name. They stood together in silence for a while, eventually giving up on looking at the sky and turning to look through the massive picture windows back inside. Merida was reaching bluntly over the table, using the excuse of ruffling Henry's hair to try and slip another piece of the pie she'd made onto his plate without Regina noticing.

 

They both laughed at the sight, Elsa breaking their mutual silence to muse: “We're different, you and I. But we both grew up so alone. ...Did you ever think you'd have this?”

  
“Nope.” Emma shook her head, her curls bouncing, once again wearing the hairstyle she'd had when she'd first met Regina. It helped distinguish the two 'twins', and had nothing at all to do with Regina once commenting that she'd missed them.

 

Inside, she watched her son telling Regina some story or other, his hands making outrageous gestures and Regina only smiling indulgently as she turned a blind eye to the slice of pie. Looking up, Regina locked eyes with Emma through the window, and her smile grew wider. Emma could only smile back in return. “But I'm glad I was wrong.”

 

Elsa's eyes were glued to her girlfriend, who was grinning at Henry and looked out the window, too, waving the two back inside when she noticed them. Elsa smiled through the glass. “Me too.”

  


**FIN**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
> __  
> The title of this story, as mentioned, is taken from The Two Trees, _originally published by William Butler Yeats in_ **The Rose** _in 1893._
> 
>  _I also wish to give mention to the pop-up version of Hans Christian Andersen's_ The Snow Queen _, illustrated (which in my opinion is too poor a word for the amazing artistry that is this book) by Yevgeniya Yeretskaya, which also provided much inspiration._


End file.
